To Each His Own...

The thing about clichés is that while it is quite cool to not conform to one and maybe many of us also spend a lot of time and energy running away from them - they have a way of announcing their existence, most often right in your face. Let us get a bit more definitive here - "...a cliché is a saying, expression, or idea that has been overused to the point of losing its intended force or novelty, especially when at some time it was considered distinctively forceful or novel, rendering it a stereotype."

Another thing about these stereotypes (behavior, not people) is the way in which they assume a sort of undeclared-relevance for a majority of us. Even if not explicitly, they do end up shaping our ambitions, our actions and ideas of what is considered good, not-so-good and so and so forth. I am tempted to use the word societal or cultural norms but I believe that blaming a mass of people for choices that we make would be another form of escapism or sly-disguised-denial.

So what we now have is a bunch of folks chasing a dream or an idea that wasn't theirs in the first place or even if it was, the origin of it was based on nothing more than hearsay or in the best case a good deal of research on personal experiences (available quite easily both in first and in third person) of those who ended up achieving that idea or dream and living it well too.

The real issue however, arises when we start judging people based on these well-accepted-norms. Suddenly, the old friend from the neighborhood becomes a complete loser because he still hasn't managed to switch jobs and still works at the local fax / photocopier shop and plays cricket with the colony kids in the evenings. Or how about the time when you and your girlfriend couldn't help laughing at that friend's wife who did not know the difference between a vodka and a whiskey and thought they were brand names of essentially the same stuff! I mean who does that, rite? And what about that cousin in your hometown who is still preparing for the civil services exams or the bank PO for the nth time because he rates job security higher than job exposure and exit options?

What is really sad is how people get pissed off when these "outliers" seem happy with whatever they are into and hardly give any thought to what all they could have been or could have achieved. Some of these pissed-off people feel obligated to enlighten their "less fortunate" acquaintances about the possibilities that are out there. For them it is almost criminal to not want to go after the "accepted-better-life" and all that comes with it. It is almost like being happy with orange bar for your whole life when the big chocolate cornetto is waiting to be relished!

Does the thought that the bloke might actually LIKE orange bar better ever cross the mind? The rational argument will be - How can you say that unless you have tried both and then decided to stick with the orange bar? True, that does make sense but then why discount the fact that many folks simply DON'T WANT to try another thing and compare? That some folks are just plain and simple at peace with the hand that is dealt to them and really don't make a big fuss of going table to table to see where they stand the best chance to sweep the stakes.

...to each his own. Another cliché...then why is it so hard to understand?

26/11: Uncomfortably numb…

Usually walking by the river in the evenings is a pleasant thing if you are in a city as pretty as Budapest. From the initial days of being overawed by the sheer beauty of the place or the constant desire to explore a new city to now, the warmth of familiarity – there has always been so much to appreciate and be all chirpy about…

However, it hasn't been so for more than a week now.

Not since that fateful afternoon when I was waiting for my flight back to Budapest - a day before the "Thanksgiving Day". From a distance I could make out that the giant LCD screen showing CNN had something familiar on it - I knew that building! For the next couple of hours till I boarded the flight, all I did was watch with disbelief at what was unfolding in Mumbai - at the places I have been all too familiar with having lived in the city for a year not so long ago.

I do not remember having watched news continuously for so long ever before in my life. It hasn't stopped yet. At first I convinced myself that it is normal, after all this has been an unprecedented act of terror on my country's soil and it is all but natural for me to want to stay connected as much as I can, sitting thousands of miles away. I have read each and every article that has been published related to this tragic event, I have seen all the news clippings that have either revealed something new or are taken from talk shows and panel discussions that have spawned all over the world media. It is almost as if I am incapable of "switching off" from the information invasion.

Trying to make sure I don't get swayed by partisan media coverage, I have spent hours assimilating content from foreign media as well - all the conspiracy theories, the allegations and the counter-allegations. I am sure by now I can probably put to shame the leading experts on the situation with the diverse views I have subjected myself to over the past 2 weeks.

But this is now beginning to scare me.

All I can think of when I am not going through the news is trying to make sense of it all in my head. Struggle to somehow figure out a way of this madness, break the problem down into smaller chunks that are easier to deal with than the mess it looks as a whole. This paralysis of analysis has started affecting my actions, my temper, my sleep pattern and unfortnately even the walks that I so enjoyed earlier.

I am clearly not being part of the solution at the moment.

Epilogue:
There was no underlying point to this post; just like there isn’t yet any to what has been happening first in Mumbai and then in the world media since 26/11. I am still not sure what I wanted to share here – was it grief, helplessness, a purposeful action plan…I don’t know.

….guess I am just uncomfortably numb.

Tauji's Time Machine

Daadi-waale Tauji was one of those people in my life that amongst other things you always remember by the way they smelt when they hugged you. His was a mixture of saada-paan and Old Spice aftershave. Every time we came to Lucknow for holidays , he would come to the station to receive us...always with a box of motichoor laddoos (typical North-Indian sweet) from Chanakya Misthan Bhandar (his ultimate sweet shop). He was simple man with very simple needs, like the saada-paan that he always kept a 'next 3 hours' supply of.

Many years ago when we were having breakfast at his house during one of our Lucknow trips, he suddenly announced in his ever so matter-of-fact tone that he has invented a time machine. Most of us at the table were too busy devouring the samosas and did not even look up to acknowledge the statement but I with my "Back to the future" context of the whole concept couldn't help but ask him to elaborate a bit more. Maybe there was something that at least came close to what the Professor achieved in the movie?!?! Time travel...the idea itself was enough to get me on the edge of my seat.

"It's quite simple", he said... Just take a blank audio cassette and record one song from each phase of your life. E.g. pick the number that you remember from the time you had your first crush, the song that you sang to yourself to keep going when you knew there were 5 chapters still left for the test tomorrow and so on.

It was probably the biggest anti-climax of my life!

After more than 14 years of my uncle's declaration at the breakfast table I now know how right he was. Listening yesterday to "Better Man" by Robbie Williams on the radio I suddenly remembered how many times I had asked Arjun (my college roomie) to rewind and play the song again and again...it felt as if I was in that little hostel room, sharing a bottle of "smuggled" beer with salami sandwiches with the song playing over and over again. There are these songs that mean so much to us not because of any great secret shared in the lyrics but just because of the times we were going though when they came along or maybe because of the people we shared these songs with.

Strange as it may sound...the fact that we are so plugged-in to our lives...insulated from everything else going around us...and at times so detached from the life(s) we once lived can at times be conveyed by something as seemingly trivial as a song.

Tauji was right...he did figure out a way to travel through time.

Disabling "Ability"...

Somehow I am beginning to question the validity of the word “ability”. I know…I am not sure if I am making sense to myself but I mean it.

What is ability?

It is often described as another term for defining proven capacity to do something i.e. the action itself can be repeated at will by the actor and not just by mere stroke of chance! Coz’ for that we have another term right? Flash in the pan!

Ok…so what happens to those who do not have this so-called gift of ability? Does that make them somehow inferior; at least with respect to the action in question? When do you stop trying? When do you give up trying to come up with that proof of ability? Or if that individual is someone else…when do you write the poor guy off saying, “…he/she simply doesn’t have it”?

I read somewhere about this b-school that had an assignment asking students to visit the neighborhood slum, pick 10 kids at random between the ages 12-16 and come up with an assessment of their ABILITY to make a decent living in 10 years from now. One of the guys turned in his report saying that not more than half would be alive / not-in-prison considering the trend in the area as well the opportunities available. The rest would be managing somehow either picking garbage or pushing broom somewhere.

On the 10th year reunion, the same professor asked the students to validate those submissions. Most ignored the idea but our man decided to go ahead and do it just for kicks. He couldn’t believe how wrong he was. All except 2 were in white collar jobs, the other 2 were construction workers but more out of choice than anything else. But what he couldn’t digest was the fact that one of them was actually part of the organizing committee for the re-union. One of the guy’s he wrote off 10 yrs back was to graduate from the same b-school next year.

Shocked out of his wits, he made enquiries and found that the following year of his graduation, a retired teacher moved in that slum who took night classes for these god-forsaken kids. More than anything else, the people in the neighborhood said she believed in them. She gave them the faith to define their own future rather than be defined by it.

So while the meaning of the word ability might still be close to proven capacity, what is questionable surely is the finality of it. It is not an everlasting state neither is the absence of it ground enough to write an individual off completely and for good.

Some times all it takes to change mediocrity into excellence…into ability…is the belief to be able to do so and it is also possible that the belief happens to be somebody else’s and not your own...

Bye Bade Baba...

I don’t know if it really is so but I really do think that I still distinctly remember the way my Baba (grandpa) smelled. Every time he hugged me in that typical khadi kurta and absolutely ill-fitting mega-sized pyjamas, Grandpa or Baba as we fondly called him would leave us smelling like him…of parathas, doodh-bread (hot milk with pieces of bread slices in it that he always had for breakfast) and Brahmi Awla Kesh Tel (hair oil) all rolled into one!

After Baba left all of us in 1987, the closest anyone could ever get to that smell was Bade Baba, Baba’s elder brother. Bade Baba lived with his wife (Badi Amma) in Lucknow and was a man of short-stout built and a booming voice.

I and my sister cherished our trips to his house every time we went to Lucknow as we knew that Baba would as always be ready with on or other of his sweet creations. If it was not his trademark Awle ka Murabba then it would be the bright pink coloured ice cream waiting for us in the fridge. Something or the other would always be there for us and it would be definitely sweet, much to the dislike of Badi Amma as she knew that being a diabetic, Bade Baba should not indulge in sweet stuff. But when have the Saxena men listened to their women if it had anything to do about dietary restrictions?!?!

I still remember the gulel (slingshot) that Bade Baba made for me to chase away the monkeys that frequented our kitchen garden when we were in Lucknow. Though I must admit that the device hardly ever saw any real monkey-action.

But what I will always remember him for is what he told me when I called him after getting a job on my B-school campus. While every one else was asking about the salary, the bonus, the perks, the future prospects etc…Baba just said one thing after congratulating me. He said…”Beta…imaandari se kaam karna” (Son…always be honest to your job).

Bade Baba is no more. He left us today morning. He was 91.